


resurgence

by harlock



Category: Captain Harlock
Genre: Alternate Canon, Angst with a Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-05-03
Packaged: 2019-05-01 10:38:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14518656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harlock/pseuds/harlock
Summary: Yama dies and Harlock resets the universe."I will find you—"He rasped, clutching harder,"when the rings of time come together, we'll meet again."





	resurgence

The timeline ends with a blood-wet gasp, the dying screams of a shattering reality as he activated the detonator, and the dark matter scorching in his veins.

Harlock remembers holding Yama close, feeling weightless after the loss of gravity even as blackened blood soaked his leathers and the dark matter seeped into their bodies. He remembers a trembling arm slipping around his neck for a slender hand to thread in his hair and damp fingertips trailing down his scarred cheek.

 _"Don't give up,"_ He says on a whisper, _"Don't stop fighting."_

_"I won't."_

Honeyed eyes crinkled at the corners and lips tugged into the smile Yama saved only for him, tipped in exasperation and fondness, edged in hope and love— _"In the next life, yea?"_

Harlock pressed their foreheads together as the _Arcadia_ shuddered and the space beyond her viewports rippled and twisted as the universe collapsed around them, _"I will find you—"_ He rasped, clutching harder, _"when the rings of time come together, we'll meet again."_

(The clock stops ticking at dusk.)

 

It can't be an accident, he thinks.

That this guarded smile gives him a familiar ache in his chest, that he feels the gaze of those gold-flecked eyes in his bones, that he knows those lips more intimately than his own. It can't be an accident, he thinks, as slender hands slide up his chest to his neck, trace his jaw, and cup his face with a tentative wonder. It's like his skin remembers what his mind does not, as goosebumps pepper his flesh when those hands travel down against his chest, opening one button at a time and displaying his marked torso.

(There are _lifetimes_ behind these marks.

He remembers his mother's stories about past lives and star-crossed lovers.

He recalls his father's worries over his health and the constant reassurances from his doctors, _"they are only birthmarks, they're harmless."_ )

A warm wash of breath against his collarbone in huffed laughter betrays the awe and curiosity, "These are..."

Harlock catches that wandering hand, bringing it to his lips to kiss smoothed fingertips with a wary smile, "A story for another time, Yama."

The shudder is visible in the younger man as Harlock kisses along his palm to his wrist and lingers there. Slow and hesitant is the brush of his lips against Yama's pulse, until he sees the way those eyes darken and pale cheeks dust in red, and he can't help the need to bare his teeth and _bite_.

 

_"Maybe you will be the one to finally put me to rest."_

Yama remembers this, but for him it's nothing more than a half-remembered dream.

_"I found redemption in the palm of your hand, and freedom between your fingertips."_

There's always been a strange kind of disconnect in his soul that he could never figure out. A drive to seek out _something_ he wasn't sure he'd ever find, and it tore him apart somedays. Made him ache until the feeling overwhelmed him, made him claw at his arms, and nearly drowned him with unfulfilled desires. All these _ghosts_ in his lungs, these unknown yet familiar faces in his dreams, and these phantom touches upon his skin; Yama thought he was going crazy. It was insane to believe this was anything but a sickness, as it only got worse as he grew older.

It's not until he moves to a new city in his twenties, in a whole new colony for his studies does it finally subside. Something changes when he reaches the Mars colony, like he should have been here all along, as if Earth wasn't quite home like it should have been.

There's a man on his campus with a birthmark slashed across his face. It looks like a scar, old and knitted together by haphazard stitches, but no, it's a birthmark. He only knows of the man thanks to a classmate pointing out that his own mark looks similar. Yama touched his face, and traced the familiar stretch of reddened flesh that he'd carried since birth. He smiled, and laughed at what a coincidence it was, and waved it off as nothing.

(In another dream, he's shot at by a dark-haired, bespectacled man that might be his brother. They're fighting on a deck, computerized voices calling out warnings, there's an argument about fate and beliefs and the bleak destiny of the human race.

He remembers the pain in this dream, when the laser fire sears and cauterizes his flesh, and ruins his eye. He blinded, to a point, and after all is said and done, he dons a patch to hide it as it heals.

But he remembers a man with a familiar scar and full lips, a piercing amber gaze lit by dark matter and an even darker expression as he comes to the rescue of his newest recruit.)

 

It's an accident, Yama thinks, when he walks into the mysterious stranger with a birthmark so like his own.

He tells himself this even as they knelt down to pick up their scattered papers, books, and other belongings. It repeats like a banner across his mind as the brunette in front of him hands him his keys and his folders, and gives him a tiny— but _familiar_ , oh so _familiar_ — smile of apology.

It's an accident, he screams at himself, when that soft, low rasp of a voice asks if he's okay, and apologizes for the mess, and the bump, and— Yama shivers under that single-eyed gaze, and feels the overwhelming urge to keep him _talking_. Because that voice caressed every inch of his skull, filled his ribcage with desire, and drowned his heart with an ache he'd only felt in his dreams.

"I know you," He blurts out, before smacking a hand to his mouth and choking back any further incriminating statements.

"No." The elder says, reaching for his hand to pull him up from the ground, "I think not."

Yama frowns and clutches his work tighter to his chest, because he feels like his lungs are trying to wring themselves free and his heart is trying to explode; truthfully, he's trying to hold himself together when his world suddenly feels like its entire axis has been upended and tilted and twisted until it centered itself. The longer he stood close to this man, the more _settled_ he felt.

The more like _home_ it felt. It was a dangerous feeling.

"Harlock." The other says, when Yama's silent crisis has dragged on too long and they've been staring at each other for so long he's lost count.

"What?"

"Now you know me."

Dangerous and fleeting though this feeling may be, it doesn't stop him from smiling sweetly, "Yama, so you'll know me, too," and grasping the other's hand in what was meant to be a handshake.

(Only they didn't let go, and the world tilted again, and the clock began ticking at dawn.)

 

This was no accident, he thinks much later, watching the older man across the table with a little smile of his own. As they sip at red wine and forget about their dinner, and skip dessert.

He thinks it again when they share skin beneath a glass ceiling pouring starlight into a dark bedroom. Though they are uncharted territory to one another in this life, they trace these new bodies with familiar touches. They are explorers to these little galaxies only one another knows, dead worlds locked away in a new bones, old passions rediscovered in softer flesh.

After, when their overheated bodies are cooled by the sweat and lingering kisses are scattered between lips and bodies; Yama breathes in sharp and clings to Harlock, moving to straddle him as if to get better view of his bared torso. He traces every mark, both freshly made and those born with this body, and his hands are shaking as he does this because the expression on his face is a fleeting mix of awe, fear, wonder, recognition, and so much more.

Harlock rests his hands on narrow hips and looks up at him; one eye paled and unseeing, the other piercing and intent, all his focus on Yama as the younger man bends over him and kisses the gash-like mark upon his cheek.

"I _remember_ this," He whispers, a watery smile curving his mouth, "I remember _you_..."

Harlock can barely breathe himself in that moment, his heart gone wild and rapid in his chest, "I found you, Yama..."

Yama laughed, broken and hysterical, and so relieved he couldn't catch his breath, "I remember you, I remember I was _yours_ , I— _Harlock_."

He was pulled in close, cradled as he shakes with laughter and clings tighter, and Harlock can feel tears dropping on his chest before Yama lifts his head. He cups the elder's face, thumbs brushing under his eyes, searching his expression as if memorizing it all over again. His gaze lingers only a second more before his mouth is claiming Harlock's, kissing him with renewed purpose and more fervor than before.

Harlock gives in, because the screaming in his heart has stopped, the feeling in his bones is now a pleasurable, rhythmic thrum singing _I found you, I found you, I found you_ , beneath his skin.

 


End file.
